The Weight of What They Carry
By: Ellen Jane Meegan
They trudged through many battlefields
Eating M&Ms and swallowing fear
Just little boys in big army boots
The things they carried; always near
They reminisced about lost loved ones
Regaling while they threw grenades
They blocked it out the best they could
but the things they carried never faded
They lost fights and some lost their lives
Things hit them hard, they still fired
Smoking and laughing...It was all to hide
the things they carried; now in them wired
They put on brave faces and bullet-proof vests
Patching each other up as wounds bled
but even pure morphine could not numb
the things they carried in their head
Then it was over. They won, they were told
The lucky got home and some even married
but twenty years later, still swallowing fear
Nothing could ease the things they carried.